Puranic Cosmology Updated 18

26.5.2010

As I begin winding up this series, again the difficulty we have in understanding the ancient lore comes to mind. I recall a conversation in the late 1960s with Federico Fellini, a renowned Italian film director at the time. He was then working on a cinema version of 1st Century Petronius Arbiter’s famous novel, Satyricon. Fellini’s problem was how to give a faithful reproduction of a pre-Christian era without shadings from the later period to prejudice the authenticity of his artistic creation, particularly since the novel centres on a homosexual relationship which was frowned upon until only recently, but was a widely accepted practice in the Graeco-Roman cultures. Italian society can be traced to Roman and Etruscan periods which were very different from Italy of today, heavily influenced as it became by Roman Catholicism.

This problem surfaces repeatedly in attempts to translate texts from ancient times with our 21st Century biases; historians and Indologists of the Raj period are examples. However, it can be accurately done if we have before us the perennial foundation on which most ancient civilisations were founded. The difficulty lies in the fact that if we discuss the cosmic backdrop of that foundation, its so-called pagan identity surfaces immediately, which exclusivist religions of the Piscean Age have rejected as somehow evil and ungodly. Or else we have Indian culture which still clings to its pagan moorings but in a distorted fashion because of the loss of the Divine Measure, and overburdened as it is by the weight of an intolerable ignorance. Indeed, at the root of the conundrum lies the Feminine Principle. We may claim to worship the Goddess but our male-dominated contemporary society belies that adoration, even in India where Goddess worship openly prevails. Thus, the final result is the same: a distortion of the cosmic sense and purpose, and finally a loss of the cosmic connection entirely. We end by following the lead of belief systems that evolved out of the dark sea of Pisces where the Veda were effectively submerged and hidden from view.

As stated throughout this series, there was a clearly-defined method to the madness in the effort to keep the Thread intact. To do so a translation of the secret essence had to be carried out so as to use the populace itself for preservation. This meant simplifying the Veda, putting it in a form that could be the vehicle to serve this purpose. It was then a question of exoteric knowledge and esoteric. The latter was for the Initiate or the practitioner of yoga to understand. The former was left for the population at large. But the binding element that provided authenticity and relevance to both was the Divine Measure of the Year. It was essential to maintain the Measure through the tropical ecliptic with its 12 months/doors in tact, if preservation was to be successful. But we note that this was not the case: at some point during the last two centuries that simple, astronomically-provable measure was lost.

We note then that the written Veda was a necessary addition to the process. From that point onward initiatic knowledge on the subcontinent took a decisive turn: it effectively went underground. Above the surface stood an exoteric store of Myth which was directly connected to the inner tradition, but its most cherished secrets were preserved for the serious practitioner of yoga. Initially the system worked well enough, but already by the time of Varamihira, author of the ‘Brihad Samhita (6th Century CE), the split between esoteric and exoteric had taken its toll; this is noted by the fact that Knowledge was not conveyed in his text as the focus of the astrological concept – it was prediction, pure and simple. Given this division and the secrecy shrouding the inner tradition, a degeneration set in when the essence of the Veda was posited so far underground that eventually it went into a deep hibernating sleep. What remains is a coating with little inner substance. Predictably, superstition came to replace Knowledge. Today there are few, if any at all, who can reconnect us to the core of the Veda and reconstruct society on its cosmic foundation.

The wisdom of the power guiding the evolution of consciousness as mapped out in the zodiac is wise indeed. In point of fact, I have called the zodiac the horoscope of the Divine Mother. At regular intervals the process calls for a universalisation of the deep purpose and sense of the Tradition. But to do so it is required that the teaching be re-lived, re-established within the contemporary setting – hence the need for updating as in Puranic Cosmology. We can no longer hide our unknowing behind a convenient veil of ‘secrecy’, thereby wielding power over the masses and unknowing devotees illegitimately, without the sound foundation of true Knowledge. Nor can we continue to cover our unknowing by the elitist phrase, ‘It cannot be put into words’, a conceit of contemporary times, unvoiced in ancient cultures. The subcontinent today provides ample proof of the catastrophic consequences of this illegitimacy. But the question now is how can the divide between innermost and outer be bridged? To note is that we have evidence of the truth but today it is yet covered in veils; thus, the need of the hour is to remove these veils to allow the eternal truth to emerge into the light of day once more, and thereby to uplift the masses out of the ignorance that engulfs them.

Secrecy was considered vital in times when only fragments of the Eternal Truth were known. In such a situation it was believed that certain aspects of the Knowledge could be misused, and indeed there has been evidence of such misuse over the past 2000 years. However, when knowledge is integral, when a body of higher knowledge descends in its complete form, as we find to be the case in this 9th Manifestation, misuse is impossible. To be precise, this complete system involves or is the gift of the Great God of Time, Mahakala as he is known in the subcontinent. And Time is a ‘tool’ none can misuse; hence, Mahakala is considered the highest of all, the greatest of all the Gods.

Cosmology is essentially a study of Time. The new cosmology carries this time perception to greater heights by revealing tools of gnosis by means of which shifts are made in our perceptive capacity which do away with the notion that we are the doers, that we choose, that we create. But the beatific vision of the Great God dismantles these notions: we come to realise that we are simply his pawns – when unconscious; or else his instruments when awareness is increased and the true mechanism of the creative process is understood. The great warrior Arjun was unable to sustain that vision (of the Time-Spirit) because the 8th Manifestation of the Scorpion/Eagle would not permit this highest perception. It is only now, in our very times, that the widest and highest vision of Truth is possible because now the Becoming is integrated with Being, failing which the Great God must remain behind closed doors and reserved for only a very few.

Evidently these highest states of perception cannot be realised by everyone. Nonetheless, a method must exist to draw the masses along with the elite, otherwise the Tradition must reach the Abyss of Time, as we find in India today, and the weight of unconsciousness is such that it exerts a pull of inertia impossible to shake off. When the population crosses a colossal billion surely the burden of Ignorance has increased exponentially to unbearable limits.

Notwithstanding the formidable burden of the Ignorance that India struggles with to continue the evolutionary march forward as demanded of her position of centrality – i.e., leader of the world in this higher process of Becoming – it can be proven with complete certainty that the essence of the Cosmic Truth has been preserved in the subcontinent and serves us well in this new age of universalism. Indeed, we may further state that the Ignorance has been an aide in the act of preservation and unveiling. The secret has thus been preserved for us today; and though distorted, the core is easily discerned by the perceptive observer, and with the right keys of Knowledge its heart of Vedic Fullness can now be disclosed. Had those veils not covered that Core – as in the Piscean/Matsya Ocean – its complete destruction would have occurred as we find in Egypt. The wisdom of the sages in those pre-dynastic times lies in the method they used for preservation which was the construction of massive monuments that could defy the passage of the aeons and the destructive bent of future generations. Ancient Egyptian civilisation’s task, as I have explained in The New Way, in Chronicles of the Inner Chamber and elsewhere, was to conquer Space; hence concentration was on a sanctity given to spatial measures, or the translation of the Cosmic Truth by its geometries into those colossi in order to fulfil the Dharma of the Manifestation during which period this conquest had to be made.

In India, as I have pointed out repeatedly, Time was the issue; by consequence the human being was the focus because consciousness is the instrument of Time. By means of the Geometry of Time the victory of this 9th Manifestation has been secured. And the tool for the operation has been the tropical zodiac, the ecliptic of 12 months, the basis of our Earth year.

This Year is what we find sanctified in the ancient Veda; and in spite of or because of superstition born of the Ignorance, that Vedic Core has been securely embedded and preserved in every temple of the Puranic era and in the myths that surround the temples. Thus, zodiacal lore abounds in Hindu temples, old and new, and is carried on through the popular perception via myth, the language of the soul. However, though the measure of 12 may remain sacrosanct, distortion has rendered that preservation useless for application – unless, of course, the protective veils can be removed.

In a nutshell, this is the Dharma of our current 9th Manifestation. It is the 9th in a long gestational series, but contrary to the human foetus this gestation covers many centuries, many millennia. Nonetheless, the gestation is exactly the same for the Earth and her civilisations as for the human creature. Indeed, on the basis of the Vedic Laws of correspondence and equivalence, we learn that the Earth has been ‘gestating’ for the past 50,000 years, from the 1st Manifestation to our own 9th; during this period we have been foetal in essence. Only now is the Child born.

Contemporary history amply proves the point. For instance, the two world wars of the last century of the last millennium were the contractions for the birth (World War 1 – pre-1926); and then the actual birth and the predictable battle for supremacy (World War 2 – post-1926). The new times commenced amid the detritus the first conflagration had left. Thereafter ‘forces’ arose to slay the Child, or to mould the newborn into a shadow of the true figure of Light which is our birthright; indeed, thereafter distortion became the keyword to usurp whatever that Birth meant for the evolutionary process. Since knowledge would be the hallmark of the new times, centred in India, what would otherwise remain inexplicable without the understanding of this cosmic foundation, Nazism adopted certain occult symbols sacred in India, foremost of which was the Swastika, the symbol of one of Shiva’s sons, Ganesh. A more exact example of usurpation and distortion as in Nazi symbolism cannot be found elsewhere; particularly its use of the Swastika, since it is an embellishment of the astrological symbol of the Earth, the circle divided into four parts and the foundation of the Map of 12 Manifestation wherein we read the destiny of the Earth over the aeons. Since the intention of the Nazi regime was world domination, the symbol was ‘appropriate’. This would be an example of misuse in the effort to appropriate the power of the symbol. The placement of its arms indicates the direction of the movement, clockwise or anti-clockwise. The former direction is the Precessional movement of the astrological ages, and the latter the annual rotation of the Earth around the Sun. (The belief that the Nazis ‘distorted’ the symbol by its clockwise direction is unfounded; both directions are correct.

    A. Clockwise – Precessional         B. Anti-clockwise, annual.

The way in which symbols are used by the uninitiated reveals their level of accomplishment. How fitting, when we consider that the Second World War was a struggle for the very survival of the Earth as home of the integral evolutionary process, the completion of which would be a golden age. This is the meaning of the Swastika with its fourfold structure and two directions. Naturally forces from the vital plane arose in full strength, because until then in its unborn condition the relativism of the Overmind prevailed, characterised as it is by innumerable possibilities, any one of which could be played out (the unborn foetus). The Overmental’s main characteristic is its poise on the periphery, disconnected from the central Point . The labour (birthing) of the last century was precisely the Act of Centering, or the unveiling of the inner Point, until then existing only in potential but as yet unrealised (unborn). It means that the process must then proceed from the Centre; from there the growth of the Child advances – that is, its existence is governed by laws that the Ignorance cannot impinge upon. It is an irreversible process thereafter, with Time as ally, facilitator, protector.

At the very onset of the new Age, the Earth thus became a battleground in the effort to abort the birth process which would signify the demise of the Ignorance as the power ruling over her subjects during this lengthy gestational cycle.

This Birth meant a radical shift for the Earth. We may discuss it freely now because as of 1971 the victory in its essence was completed. Since then what remained to be worked into the evolutionary matrix was a revelation of the new Gnosis which would be the ‘laws’ of a higher Purpose governing humanity. Understanding this higher Birth Process can provide answers to the travails the Earth is experiencing. This Gnosis can be seen as the armature of the 4th of the Solar Line who is, according to Tradition, the War God Mars, 4th planet from the Sun. Puranic myth informs us that Mars was formed of the sweat of the Earth from her great labour. And so it did come to pass.

Given the Mars factor involved, it is interesting to note that the two world wars surrounded the onset of the new age – the close of the Piscean Age, the birth of the new Aquarian Age. More significantly, it was precisely when in 1938 the Earth was integrated into the threefold harmonic formula that the last great conflagration began (see The New Way, Vol. 3, and The Gnostic Circle, Aeon Books for more details). The wars themselves were a further indication of the times to come, because for the first time they were global involving all the major world players. Thus, the transformation of Mars is the adventure of our times.

With this background we realise that history unfolds according to a certain pattern. Like a map it allows the journey ahead to be a conscious one and more easily followed. We do not fumble in the dark in the effort to closet the process into the forms of a past that has little relevance today. I have in mind the much-exploited Maya date 2012, sometimes referred to as the ‘end time’. In my view its significance lies in the fact that finally the Maya civilisation can be laid to rest, its purpose having been fulfilled. The new supramental Gnosis alone is relevant to our civilisation and has the capacity to reveal what has been and what will come to pass. On its foundation we do not predict fragmentarily; the Supermind offers a vision of oneness, of wholeness. And that wholeness is the keynote of our Age.

More importantly, the Nazi usurpation of Vedic symbols – even down to the misuse of ‘Aryan’ to designate the rising ‘superior’ race – is the most accurate historical proof that India is the destined centre and soul of the Earth. Out of her womb the Child is born. At all costs that Child of the New Creation was the prize to secure.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Puranic Cosmology Updated 17

20.5.2010

Some followers of this series have expressed the desire to have the complete hymn RV X.135 which I discussed in the last Update, transcribed for readers. I had purposely not done so because not being a Sanskrit scholar myself, for the most part I would have to rely on the various translations in print. To my knowledge Sri Aurobindo has not translated this particular hymn and I would have had more confidence in his rendition, but I can understand why. Indeed, as others have stated, it is obscure. It presupposes a thorough background in ‘the language of the Gods’ which is indeed Sanskrit – but within the initiatic framework I have referred to time and again.

There are others of less goodwill – to put it mildly – who reject my attempts to convey the esoteric substance in a manner which we can apply today precisely because I am not a Sanskritist. These are research scholars who believe that the word alone holds the key to understanding, and perhaps even enlightenment. None seem to understand that we are dealing with a perennial knowledge, as it is sometimes called. But this does not imply a fixed, static truth unaffected by time and circumstance. For if this truth is embedded in a cosmic system then change, Becoming of Being is inherent in the knowledge and must be accommodated in any interpretation of the ancient wisdom, failing which we fall into the trap of fundamentalism where religions and ideologies often find themselves.

The dharma of the subcontinent is sanatana, eternal, not because it is the One Truth, unchanging and timeless, but because it is cosmic to the core. However, a distinction must be made: there is Cosmic Truth and Cosmic Ignorance. What is known of the Dharma today is often a distortion of that pristine Truth we see in the cosmic surround because we have lost the Divine Maya, the key to the sacred Measure. It is the holy grail of the Vedic Way, the Philosopher’s Stone that can distinguish the dross from the pure substance.

There is a wisdom in the arrangement of the task to re-establish the Dharma in this Age of Vishnu the Friend, so that it can be applied to the whole world and not just reserved for one culture, one nation, a community or even a caste. The method has been precise. To begin, those who were born to undertake this work came to Indian culture only after the initial break-through realisation that revealed the eternal truth-foundation of the Dharma – fresh as it were, shorn of the embellishments and also distortions that had necessarily been accumulated over the centuries. The point I wish to make is that the breakthrough is a product of the present; it occurs amidst the play of circumstances that cannot be ignored when the goal is an integral manifestation. The Cosmic Truth can never be anything but integral. The proof of this statement lies in the cosmos itself and a most profound symbol which accurately describes Being and the Becoming of that Being. Together they form the astrological symbol of the Sun , heart of our system whence we receive our Light. It is the most inspiring symbol of the Cosmic Truth.

How does the cosmos imply the integral, we may ask. This is by the divisions of the circle in the act of Becoming when diversity enters the scheme of creation. We note the same development in the first Book of the Bible: Genesis starts from a condition of wholeness, oneness; thereafter division begins and increases until finally unity must be achieved again but on a very different, enhanced basis (Book of Revelation). These divisions, it needs to be noted, are entirely based on measures provided by the Earth and her harmonies as she journeys around the Sun, most obvious of which is the fourfold periodicity based on the phenomenon of Equinoxes and Solstices. This division of four is what we rely on to forge in our consciousness the Earth-grounded truth and the inescapable necessity to respect her measures for the Cosmic Truth to reveal its secrets.

The problem with academic research in dealing with ancient lore is that it does not start with the aforesaid break-through realisation – i.e., a foundation of unity which is indicated by the central Point of the symbol. This research stands poised on the periphery where any one of its fragments can be taken for the Point. From that segment it constructs an hypothesis, seeks to make a theory; and from there a more or less complete system. At the end, what we have is simply one more interpretation which only increases confusion. I will use one verse of RV X.135 as an example, first giving Raimundo Panikkar’s translation, and then a rendition of the same verse by Jeanine Miller from her book, The Vedas, Harmony, Meditation and Fulfilment. In Update 16, I referred to one line of this particular verse; here is the full stanza, first by Panikkar:

Without seeing you mounted, young man,
The new chariot constructed by your mind;
Wheelless it is, with only one pole,
Yet it moves in all directions.

Miller’s version reads:

The new, wheelless, one-poled car
facing in all directions which thou
didst make, O youth, by means of mind,
thou ascendest unconsciously (without seeing). (X.135-3)

Comments on these lines by Miller are interesting because they reveal that the point of the hymn is missed when it is taken as a funeral rite; that is, the ‘death’ in question may be representative of a process leading to Immortality, the goal of the Vedic quest. The chariot (to move through the ecliptic wheel) is clearly the vahana of the initiate’s journey, or the ordinary mortal’s, as the case may be, and not necessarily a funeral bier; and it moves through or across the zodiac in a progression of stages. The youth of the hymn enters this ‘wheel’ in an unconscious state as birth on Earth demands. The goal is to alter that atavistic unconsciousness and to attain a state of immortality – hence, the Rishis are known also as the Immortal Ones. If successful, that ‘unseeing’ entry is overcome – i.e. a conscious ‘death’ and an equally conscious birth. The chariot ‘faces in all directions’ in Miller’s translation; for Panikkar it ‘moves in all directions’. This is another reference to the ecliptic circle (wheel), backdrop or ‘map’ of the Journey.

It seems obvious that we are dealing with a very specialised cosmically-grounded vision in these and many other hymns. Indeed, Miller makes this comment before taking up these obscure verses: ‘…Passing references without explanation would rather point to a body of doctrine already well-established and cannot be dismissed either as meaningless or as without any future purport in point of doctrine.’

I do agree with Jeanine Miller and it is a point I have made from the moment I first read the hymns. They reveal a civilisation long-acquainted with and firmly rooted in the Cosmic Truth. But where I disagree concerns the ‘doctrine’ Miller reads into the Veda: methods of meditation and states of consciousness attained through techniques which she believes are described in the collection. She often refers to the hymns as ‘prayers’ which I would find difficult to do, given their precise context and background. This is an interpretation very far from the cosmic language I perceive in the Veda. However, to the credit of both Sanskritists, they have not fallen into the Indologists’ trap of seeking to read history into the collection – i.e., the so-called Aryan Invasion by hordes descending from Central Asia into the subcontinent which was supposedly empty of any civilisation worth the name.

The text reveals a civilisation grounded in the Cosmic Truth in all its facets, corresponding to the stage of evolution of the Earth and the questions imposed by decay, death and the reality of a process where the Ignorance must be taken into account – and its function, if it may be so called, recognised and overcome. For this is the purpose of the quest and leads to a state of immortality. In that sense the Ignorance (the Panis, the Dasyus, Vala, Vritra) – what we might call hostile forces today – is actually the initiate’s greatest aid because without their contribution little can be achieved at our present stage.

Further, Miller comments on this stanza, ‘…The description is specific: wheelless, acakra, furnished with only one pole, ekesa, facing in all directions visvatah. This confirms that no earthly vehicle is meant here; its facing in all directions surely implies a mental capacity for viewing or taking in all surrounding objects or many different concepts at once. It is new, for though fashioned during existence, it is used only after death, and in a peculiar sense resembles a ratha [chariot] of the ritual which wafts the essence of the sacrifice to the gods. In other words, it [the chariot] is the representation of the essence of the previous life of that alone which can take the defunct to paradise…’

The translator approaches the Veda and this particular hymn from a post-Vedic mentality where karma began to play a central role. This, she believes, seems to be the nature of the chariot that carries the youth to the beyond [‘paradise’] in this funeral rite. Rather, to one versed in the cosmic harmonies any mention of wheel immediately calls up that Harmony. It is unavoidable.

Thus, what if this hymn is no funeral description at all? Failure to understand the main feature of the verses – the chariot – is certainly to miss the point. As I wrote in Update 16, there is a lower hemisphere – i.e. ‘the evil path’; in Panikkar’s interpretation, this is the path that ends in death where one exits (the Underworld – Cosmic Sunset, 7th stage) and is therefore unable to experience ‘death’ as the initiate would: the threshold that must be crossed for the second birth to occur in life.

There is an interesting point to be made that reveals the difficulties translators face and for which reason I feel that in arcane texts such as these a foundation must exist before one can begin to convey their real meaning. To illustrate from her cited book, Jeanine Miller has reproduced the above stanza 6 of the hymn in question, in English which she has translated from the French of L. Renou, another Sanskritist; the Sanskrit transliteration is given with each line.

How was his equipment [chargement] (yathā abhavad                                                                                                        anudeyī)
Thence was born the origin [of things] (tato agram ajāyata)
First the foundation was laid (purastād budhna ātatah)
Then the egress was made (pascān nirayanam krtam)

Miller does not agree with the ‘cosmic significance’ Renou applies: ‘On this basis he believes the hymn has a cosmogonic intent. The word agra means “beginning, summit, front”, so Renou chose the sense of “origin” of things…’

But I certainly agree with Renou, though I believe his interpretation has not gone far enough simply because he did not have that ‘foundation’. What is interesting to note is that the circle/wheel is the same for both the cosmos and the individual. This is the One Circle clearly defined in the Rig Veda, in this important verse which explains all the properties of that ‘one wheel’:

Twelve spokes, one wheel, navels three.
Who can comprehend this?
On it are placed together
Three hundred and sixty like pegs.
They shake not in the least.
(Rig Veda 1.154.48)

It is the same circle for the ecliptic year and for the individual; the problem is that scholars do not appreciate this Oneness. And in Miller’s case, the understandable difficulty surfaces again and again when she confuses the attainment of Swar and immortality with an extra-cosmic dimension.

In the chariot stanza there are two words that interest me, purastād budhna atatah, which they translate as ‘First the foundation was laid’, and then the next line, pascān nirayanam krtam, ‘Then the egress is made’. The underlined words in both lines can be read as ‘east’ and ‘west’. In so doing, we may well come to a different conclusion if the wheel is perceived as the ecliptic. Miller’s comments on this stanza serve to confirm her interpretation of a moral/karmic reading: ‘…As we live, so we die, remembering the injunction to think nobly is to live nobly and die nobly.’ These various translations are replete with assumptions and inferences which, in my view, have little to do with the reality the Rishis experienced.

And what if Swar is not assumed to be an otherworldly ‘heaven’ – because this is the current understanding of the word after the religious mind took hold during the Age of Pisces and had forced the ancient Traditions to go underground? The point of the hymn would then be different. To illustrate, here is the circle divided into four (the astrological symbol of the Earth) with a lower and a higher hemisphere and the division into four quarters. This symbol explains the basic structure of the Journey and would especially explain this hymn.

The cosmic script gives accurate details of the initiation when we understand the zodiac in its pre-Vedantic, pre-orthodox-religion content. The four quarters are 1) physical, 2) vital, 3) mental, and 4) spiritual, known as Twashtri’s ‘bowl’ in the Veda.

The last quarter is what needs to be treated in greater depth because it can no longer be understood as spiritual in the sense we attribute to the word. After the Earth-rooted orientation had been lost in the dark age, ‘heaven/swar’ had to be a plane beyond our material universe; there were no means to prove otherwise. The yogic realisation that could do so – the Vedic – had fallen into oblivion. What remained is the collection of the four Vedas, most of which are incomprehensible. But on the basis of the new cosmology, this last and highest quarter – the goal of the quest – is proven to be of this Earth and not a Beyond, wherever and whatever that may be. Its designation is now perforce ‘Supramental’, the plane above Mind and now opened up to the evolutionary process by the work of the 9th Avatar of Vishnu (see Secrets of the Earth, Aeon Books).

This is the great rahasya of the Veda; and it is totally beyond our comprehension because we cannot shake off the baggage accumulated over the past 2000 years. It is interesting to note that the zodiac makes this point quite clearly: Capricorn, the mountain summit of the Journey, is an earth sign; moreover, it is home of one of the more important Vedic Gods, Varuna. In the next and final update of this series, I will demonstrate how Puranic lore confirms this ‘location’ for Varuna unequivocally, thereby demonstrating how Puranic Tradition is a further stage in the evolution of the Vedic ‘seed’.

Thus, the point I am making is that the Vedas, and the Puranas as their extension, have to be denuded of post­-Vedic biases to become comprehensible. This being the case, RV X.135 is simply a description of birth (entering the wheel of time) unconscious for all but those who are able to reach the deathless path without exiting at the crucial 7th stage Libra, Cosmic Sunset. There one moves into the higher hemisphere and leaves behind the lower ‘evil path’ which ends in a death as unconscious as birth had been. One chooses to complete the Journey on the Chariot expressive of the Becoming – that is, movement, forward drive. One agrees to confront Death and then to experience the ‘second birth’ a qualification earned through a very special initiation as accurately described in the Veda and not simply a birthright.

Thereafter the Initiate-Warrior is carried on the Vedic Steed to Swar, the kingdom where he or she may join the Immortal Ones while choosing to remain or not on Earth and in a physical body. For Earthlings the journey we embark upon at birth (presently unconsciously) ends at the 8th stage, the sign of Death. When through yoga the inertia that is Death is overcome, the initiate transforms the Scorpion in his consciousness-being into the Eagle, Vishnu’s carrier – that Vishnu/Scorpion as accurately depicted in the Bhugola Varnanam imagery (Update 12), the one sign/stage left out of Vishnu Trivikrama’s three strides.

The next sign, the 9th, is the sign of the Horse; and this is the symbol-vehicle to attain a certain ‘speed’ of consciousness through contraction which permits us to pass through what for ordinary mortals would be the Underworld where oblivion sets in but which for the Initiate is the sign/stage wherein by conquering Death (Inertia) the sacred Portal (the Solstice month/door) is finally reached, through which one can enter Swar. For that to occur and to signify the Victory, extreme contraction of consciousness-being to a point is the key.

The process of Death the human experiences is characterised by that extreme contraction, but to the degree that he or she cannot hold on to the thread of consciousness in this material universe. The only way to cope with this predicament is to exit – and then to return, but again in an unconscious state for another ‘journey’. On the other hand, by processes of yoga as described in the Veda, the Initiate is able to resist the pull to exit and by the release of a concentration of Power accumulated in the act of choosing the higher over the lower at the 7th stage, a certain ‘fuel’ is secured which serves to impel the Warrior forward as on a swift steed en route to the Mountaintop.

I will close this series by providing examples in the next Update of the manner in which the same content of the early Veda is brought forward in a simplified fashion when the Knowledge was forced underground; while also explaining the problems that this ‘simplification’ has brought about. Hinduism secured the unbroken Thread through various means, most prominent of which is the enormous amount of temple constructions, each one faithful to the Veda when viewed under this new light and coupled with a different understanding of the vast collection of Puranic tales regarding their origin. Added to these are the numerous pilgrimages across the subcontinent, highlighting certain specific locations, also based on corresponding myths from the Puranic collection. These have, in their own way, actualised the Knowledge by describing geographical positions especially sacred to certain Godheads and embedded securely in the lore of the people, thus making the subcontinent unique on the planet for its living tradition.

The task at hand now is to cast new light on this tradition, thereby to halt the further proliferation of superstition that plagues a society where the real Veda had been kept secret for so long that its true content has been lost.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director
Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Puranic Cosmology Updated 16

19.5.2010

‘The more one goes on this path, the more one feels the limitations of not only speech but of thought. The mind is too heavy, too coarse. It will not respond, or responds but imperfectly, to the subtle vibrations that as it were come to it from above. The highest truth must needs be presented in symbols. Fichte, the German philosopher, said that if he had to live his life over again the first thing he would do would be to invent a new set of symbols, but alas, it is not so easy. Symbols are born, not made. They descend from above and cannot be artificially manufactured. In this matter you, poets, have an advantage over philosophers like myself who try to use what is so ludicrously miscalled “exact thought”. From below one can compile only allegories: real symbols are given from above. But when given, one can learn far more from them than from words…In fact, mental concepts – miscalled knowledge – derived from the latter did much to obscure the real knowledge derived from the former and it was only as I learnt to pass beyond words and “thoughts” that the true knowledge originally given by the “symbol” was to shine forth once more and to some extent irradiate even the dead conceptual knowledge.’ (Letter from Krishnaprem to Dilip Kumar Roy in the 1930s, quoted in Sri Aurobindo Came to Me, page 337, Harikrishna Mandir Trust, 2004, 5th edition)

It is abundantly clear that in order to update Puranic Cosmology we first have to understand it and the times in which it became formulated. This task becomes difficult when there is no secure foundation for the exercise. Our civilisation today, wondrous as it may be in many ways, is lacking in the intuitive element that imbued cultures of old. Something of this remains in the subcontinent – almost we could call it a genetic signature; but our world today does not encourage the development of such faculties. Consequently, when we read the ancient texts in Sanskrit it is impossible to mentally hit upon the right translation. I made this point in Update 11. What we do know, and herein lies the complexity, is that each word has several levels of meaning. We may say the same for any language in a sense, but Sanskrit presents problems that English, for example, does not.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the text must bear a certain consistency and coherency. If it is translated by an Initiate of the same path, then we can approach the soul of the Veda more readily than the average Sanskritist who may pick up a correct word here and there but lack that indispensible coherency. The same may be said for the Egyptian “writing”, or the Mayan.

We can understand something of the quality I seek to convey by the focus of this series, the Capricorn thread. But even knowing its form and position among the twelve zodiacal signs, similar to Sanskrit there are many levels of meaning and application of the hieroglyph. For example, when I look at the symbol I perceive an entire body of higher knowledge through it, knowledge which cannot come through academic learning. Foremost, I see Capricorn/Makar in the context of the entire wheel as a progression, a journey indeed – with a starting point and a goal. This unity is essential but it has not played a part at all in the astrology practiced in India, or even in the West to any meaningful degree, if it exists at all. There is no initiatic journey without seeing Capricorn within this unity – one month/’world’ moving into the next, as the Rig Vedic hymn so clearly states – culminating in the victory of the 10th Mountain sign.

The same situation arises when we observe the hieroglyphs covering the walls of certain pyramids and temples of ancient Egypt. Though we are in possession of a Rosetta Tablet (of a much later date than the period in which the pyramids and the Sphinx were built), we believe that based on this key to translation we can decipher whatever we wish to know of the ancients. But in fact we are not able to understand the ancients because symbols, symbolic script means nothing to us. In this light, supposing each glyph contains many layers of meaning; the question is how are we to know to which level the Initiate was referring when the text was carved? Above all, where is that prerequisite coherency, unity, interconnectedness that must be found in the ancient Egyptian texts similar to the Vedic?

The uniqueness of our era is that the art of reading symbols has returned and perhaps in a more impressive manner than in the earlier times we stand in awe of. We may not now perceive in symbols as it were, and we require to have everything spelt out until we have wrung the life out of the image, because Mind is our cherished instrument of comprehension and its coarseness demands this approach; but our times have their own importance and beauty because in this Age of the Supermind the central focus is, precisely, a new seeing, the birth of a new faculty of perception that brings its own tools for deciphering because it stands above Mind and can do what Mind is incapable of: to convey sense and purpose. To this end, the new Language is a synthesis accompanied by a series of gnostic symbols which, because of the new integral perception it encourages, defies distortion. This is its blessing and its bane in a world where we know only the relativism Mind has imposed in an increasing measure across the centuries. The absoluteness of gnostic seeing threatens that relativism, so artfully expressed in the Puranic tale of the Magic Deluder (Update 5). And based on mental cogitation with its inevitable relativism, we can never know that sacred Purpose and so avoid the catastrophe that many feel is immanent given the purposelessness of our civilisation.

The emergence of Sanskrit (‘the language of the Gods’) was an immensely important indicator of the times to come and the task set before the Avatar in this new age. We take far too lightly the fact that when earlier the hymns/mantras were handed down orally, it was suddenly required that they be communicated through a written language. If we study the matter deeply it becomes clear that this development reveals that Sanskrit, because of its special properties, is a bridge between the era when perception in symbols alone was prevalent, and the arrival of an era when a division would occur and the supremacy of Mind would begin. Entering into the 9th Manifestation (234 BCE) and approaching the Aquarian Age of universalism (1926), language was to cease being reserved for an élite.

The immense value of Sanskrit lies in this fact: it could still be reserved for an élite – and by this I do not mean class or caste distinction but initiatic capacity – and at the very same time serve more mundane purposes; indeed, it is noteworthy that Sanskrit is considered the language best suited for computer science. Is this simply a coincidence, or is this part of the more universalised consciousness that was being prepared and which could be foreseen through yogic trikaladrishti (vision of the three times) when those ‘worlds’ were experienced? After all, why did the Rig Veda suddenly need to be transcribed in written form, and in such a way that its heart and soul could be preserved while serving other purposes as well, those that would arise after the Divide that so characterises our culture? Oral transmission still exists today as a firm part of the culture of the subcontinent; and yet, something transpired to make it vitally important to set down in writing with an appropriate vehicle what had hitherto been part of the Guru/Shishya tradition alone.

The times were destined to change, therefore a ‘bridge’ between the old and the new was the order of the day. The original intent remains: initiation is required to grasp the full depths of the mantras, which no scholastic learning can provide. But Sanskrit is like a vast repository of what was accrued from the past and what would be the demands of the future, for those whose task it would be to re-establish the Dharma, as well as to engage in an updating exercise such as we are undertaking in these pages.

It can be noted therefore that a blending of symbols and language is the key to the new perception, the new Seeing. We do not need to fall back any longer on the tiresome refrain that we hear in spiritual circles: It cannot be expressed in words. In the Age of Supermind the new Language does precisely that: it expresses what formerly was considered the Inexpressible with the setting in of the great Divide. But the point I am making is that seeking to decipher hieroglyphs without this reestablishment amidst the circumstances prevailing today is a futile task and actually serves no purpose. Just to decipher a text in no way assures that we will attain or absorb the consciousness of those who had created the symbols and symbolic writing of old. Rather, seeing the appropriateness of what existed then and the development in between, with its own ‘purpose’ and imperatives, opens up a vastly different appreciation of the trials and tribulations we face as a global society today.

Since the subcontinent is the centre from where the new times must evolve, Sanskrit arose in this hallowed land. Like the Puranic Temple or the Myths, it too is a repository of the ancient Knowledge. But it is more than that. It establishes the value of the Word unlike any other vehicle that we have today for conveying the quality of consciousness of the Ancients; and it is for this reason that in India from time immemorial grammar played such a significant role and formed a part of the Veda and the sacred 64 Arts. The structure of a language such as Sanskrit, complex as it may seem, does reveal that it is a bridge between then and now, a repository of sacred truths which are lost in the commonplace approach.

                                  A.                                                                           B.

The symbol of Libra (A) and the Egyptian hieroglyph (B)
with the middle portion removed.

Here is an interesting example of the multi-layered meaning in Egyptian hieroglyphs. It can provide a clue to the approach I am describing. Above is the glyph of the 7th zodiacal sign, Libra (A), the third Cardinal Pole. Next to it is the Egyptian hieroglyph read as ‘horizon’ or the Sun on the horizon. In astrology Libra is of course the sign of Cosmic Sunset, and in mythic tradition of the ancient world, the west was the location of the Underworld.

It is especially important to note that B is found inscribed on the Sphinx. With the clues provided in Vishnu Trivikrama, coupled with the new gnostic symbol which I have called the Map of the 12 Manifestations (see Secrets of the Earth, Aeon Books), given its symbolism (Lion/Man-Woman) the colossus appears to have been built in the 7th Manifestation – precisely the Manifestation of Libra. Its actual construction we may reasonably assume (and weathering erosion confirms) to have been in the Age of Leo within that 7th Manifestation or between 15,120 to 8,640 years ago; that would have been its middle portion around 10500 BCE.

The rationale of Cosmic Sunset is not difficult to understand when the unified zodiac reveals that Libra stands in opposition to the first Cardinal Pole of the Zodiac, Aries or Cosmic Dawn – the beginning of the Journey both for individual birth and for the passage of the Ages. Therefore, given this positioning, or the axis formed by Aries/Libra, exit from this plane would logically be associated with Libra, the opposite position of the setting Sun.

We have this same understanding conveyed in the very profound Rig Veda hymn X.135. In some quarters it is known as a funeral hymn and the verses describe the Chariot of Death. I have approached the hymn differently, however. It is more than evident that this ‘chariot’ is none other than the ecliptic wheel (‘… the wheelless, one-poled car facing in all directions…’) which is to carry the youth in question on to the ‘western egress’ from the eastern ingress. That is, birth provides the new ‘vehicle’ and entry point on the east, exit in the west. And this is my point: we can translate it with an ordinary funeral in mind, or we can see Libra in a much larger context as indeed the exit point opposite the eastern beginning. But it can be an exit means of escape while in life, or something much deeper; or rather, more all-inclusive.

The more mundane reading of the Libra glyph is to see in the symbol a pair of Scales, which does form a part of the sign’s significance for it is indeed one of the equinox balancing poles where night and day are equal. While this explanation cannot be denied it is one of those layers, perhaps the most external. In this initiatic Journey of far more importance is what the myth captures – the underworld; and still of more importance is the question of EXIT, the point where one chooses to plunge into the Void rather than continue the journey into and through the upper half of the wheel and on to the experience of the Vedic Fullness. This is presented as a choice between continuing the Journey and moving into the upper hemisphere of the wheel of twelve to Uttarayana, the fourth and last Cardinal Pole of Capricorn, or ‘opting out’ so as not to face the trial that lies ahead.

This brings us to the most difficult passage in the Vedic Journey: the Initiate’s confrontation with Death. It transpires in the 8th sign/month/stage following Libra, the sign known as Scorpio or the Eagle. The choice between the two is ours to make, as individuals and as a civilisation. We either accept that Heaven is a property of our material world and, more particularly, of this Earth – or we ‘opt out’. It is an act of choosing that the entire world is facing.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology

Puranic Cosmology Updated 15

6.5.2010

(click to enlarge)

Diagram: Robert E. Wilkinson

The innermost circle is the Tropical Zodiac, or the ecliptic pathway (divided into 12) of all the planets as they journey around the Sun, Earth included. Like the face of a clock it is a fixed, permanent and unchanging measurement and can be ascertained with great precision by the timing of the Equinoxes and the Solstices, the four pillars on which this permanency relies. On our imaginary clock-face these would be the 12, 3, 6, and 9 points. Then a calendar is born that is equally unchanging, but within change. Paradoxical as it may seem, this permanency within change holds the key to the purpose of our existence on Earth. It is only from this planet, third from the Sun, that conditions are appropriate for a species to evolve to the point of appreciating the full implications of this rest and motion – simultaneously. We could just as well describe this as a consciousness of unity, but in this new Age of the Supermind, these descriptions fall short of the true significance.

This calendar born of the permanency offered by the Equinoxes and Solstices is now a global convention – another sign of the universality of Aquarius, our present astrological Age – except in Hindu India where the ecliptic pathway of the Rishi’s ‘journey’ or ‘initiation’ is no longer of any consequence to 80% of the population, though it had been honoured in the Vedic Age and well into the Age of Pisces. Hindus are obliged by the pundits today to disregard that permanency in favour of the next circle – sidereal in the drawing.

That would be the circle of so-called fixed stars which, with respect to the ecliptic, is seen to move in a backward motion. This sidereal circle is indeed an important feature of cosmology, old and new, because by locating the exact moment in calendar time when the hands on our cosmic clock-face shift with respect to the tropical zodiac, we can know what astrological age we are experiencing on Earth. One thing is the astronomical/geological ages; another of far greater importance is the Astrological Age because it holds the key to destiny – in this case collective rather than individual as in an individual’s horoscope. The shifting of the equinoxes is to be understood as describing the Earth’s own horoscope where we read the destiny of entire civilisations. Thus, there is an individual destiny and a universal pattern which can help us discover our greater purpose for taking birth in this particular Age. It informs us of the higher evolutionary purpose when as a species we have passed a certain threshold to a more conscious progress as our collective destiny.

Incomprehensibly this shifting sidereal circle, where the passage of the Astrological Ages is registered, is used for temple timings and for all individual horoscopy. Charts for these purposes are constructed in disregard for the ecliptic zodiac, using the distant ‘stars’ as the basis. Nakshatras are also fixed according to that distant sphere, deceivingly called ‘zodiac’ to further confuse the issue. And since that constellational Zero Point (ayanamsha) is shifting as seen from Earth with each passing day, Indian astrologers prepare their charts accordingly, each one presenting a different calculation for that ayanamsha which is nearly impossible to locate. The practical result with a discrepancy of 23 days/degrees over the tropical zodiac is that a person born on 22 March, the start of Aries, would be considered born in Pisces since in this Nirayana system, as it is called, Aries does not begin until 14-15 April – well after the Vedic ‘door’ has passed. Being an essentially intuitive race Indians make ‘adjustments’ in their predictions accordingly, for which reason some come true, many do not. To call this Post-Vedic Astrology a science (taught with pride in certain universities) is a further indication that the journey of the Vedic-Age Initiate has become only a distant memory. Furthermore, it needs to be stated that the astrology (jyotish) practiced in India today is a purely predictive art unlike the Vedic which was an initiatory process entirely.

Thus the Nakshatras are also measured with this 23 degree discrepancy. The truth be told, the symbology of the Nakshatras does not contain Vedic Knowledge which is found only in the tropical zodiac with its enlightened hieroglyphics and imagery connected to the months of the year where we find… ‘the seat of our self-accomplishing’ of the Rig Veda. It is only the Vedic sequence of 12 as it figures in the hymns that contain higher knowledge, similar to all Mystery Schools down the ages. This has been the Initiate’s Journey from time immemorial.

Thus, according to the new cosmology, we are now in the Age of Aquarius given the sidereal circle’s relationship to the special movement known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. This motion is created by what is often referred to as a ‘wobble’ of the Earth due to gravitational pull (of the Moon?). In effect, it is only because of this ‘wobble’ that we can discover the very slow movement formed precisely by the Equinoctial plane. It is not a distant star that informs us of the passage of the Ages: this measure is determined by the Earth herself. We may use a particular star as a pointer, like the pole star, but the evolution as mirrored in the Precession of the Equinoxes is born of the Earth’s rhythms produced by the circular gyration of her axis. The result is that a circle is traced in the heavens by this equinoctial projection, the completion of which requires 25,920 Earth years. In the new cosmology it is called one Great Round.

This is certainly not a new discovery; it was known in ancient Egypt and from there it was passed on to the rest of the Middle East, then to Greece and finally to Rome. From that early period the Julian calendar was devised and adopted by most of the then known world; it is still in use even today but with certain modifications introduced by Pope Gregory in the 16th Century to accommodate the accumulation of five extra days over the 360 degrees of the ecliptic circle. The Sun of our system is seen to move approximately one degree of celestial longitude per 24 hours – sometimes slightly more, other times slightly less, hence the leeway of a day one way or the other in establishing the Sankrantis each year. But the discrepancy is not only one day for Hindus; it is 23 days!

The conclusion drawn by latter-day scientifically-influenced pundits, those who prepare the almanacs that set forth important timings such as the entry into India’s own ruling sign Capricorn, is that ‘Makar is no longer THERE’. According to contemporary science it has shifted – the ‘science’ which is ignorant of the higher knowledge that is the foundation of these harmonies. And lacking this foundation these sacred matters are left to pundits to determine, who are easily intimidated because they do not know what they are meant to measure any longer. Simply put, they measure the sankrantis in the WRONG CIRCLE, the sidereal/constellational, completely disregarding the permanent tropical zodiac/ecliptic. And lamentably that measuring act hundreds of light years away is also inaccurate, resulting in inaccuracy even for determining entry into Mitra’s Age of Aquarius the Friend; it is particularly important to get this right because it involves the Evolutionary Avatar’s appearance every 6480 years. Lacking the proper measure, the result is ‘avatars’ abound today.

The lead has been left to contemporary science which proves time and again to be ignorant of matters that require initiation before all else, just as described in the Rig Veda. This error is committed even by scholars who should also know better: they mix the two, sidereal/constellational and tropical, calling them both ‘zodiac’ (another ‘distortion’ tactic?). But the ‘journey’ is only a property of the ecliptic zodiac. That is where knowledge is found by initiation, not by projection beyond to the constellation of stars, which we persist in calling ‘the zodiac’ to further confuse the issue, but which lacks those ‘doors’ to open through ‘the months and the years’ in the initiatory experience.

Our point of observation and measurement is the Earth, ever and always. Indeed, the most important feature of the updated cosmology is the reinstatement of the Earth as the fixed point of observation. It can be noted from this explanation that the Earth set the measure in the Vedic Age, a function attributed to the Divine Maya, the feminine power of the Transcendent, she who shapes His infinitudes in the material universe, she who gives form to His eternities through her gestating power of Time; and true to the Hermetic aphorism ‘as above – so below’, from our point of observation the key in number-power is 9 – the gestation period of the human being as well as the cow, hence this creature was honoured by the ancients with the due solemnity she deserves – for one, because of this correspondence with the human gestation. Surely reverence for the cow connected to the Sun in ancient Egypt must have come from Vedic India because in Sanskrit, known as ‘the language of the Gods’, the word for cow, gau, means both the animal and a ray (of the Sun).

Every time we transgress the harmony by ignoring the Earth’s own rhythms, claiming as contemporary pundits do that Capricorn is ‘no longer there’ where the sign was in ancient Egypt and Vedic India, and that the ‘door’ to enter Makar has shifted 23 days backward from the December Solstice and insist on separating the two – shortest day of the year and Capricorn entry, or separating the inseparable – we reveal that not only have we buried the Divine Maya (measure) completely and decisively, but that Knowledge has been replaced by Ignorance. Maya has been divested of her divinity – along with the sacred feminine throughout the world – and that highest of all principles is now known as ‘illusion’. Surely the condition of women and the society we have spawned confirms this pathetic state of affairs.

This is the result of distortion. We continue worshipping the Goddess in this land that is her very body, but having disregarded her sacred geometries of both space and time, the result can only be superstition born of Ignorance. These sacred arts must be the preserve of those who have realised the consciousness in which the Rishis and Initiates lived. There was no divide then between matter and spirit as exists today after the split. There was simply THAT, undivided, harmonious, one. Because necessarily academics study these issues from a mentally-poised consciousness, deciphering the old or new codes is an impossible task. What the Rig Veda hymns and the discoveries unearthed in Egypt of the ancient civilisation do reveal is that those utterances and those monuments are proof of the undivided perception I am describing.

Again I must state, all is not gloom and doom for Earthlings.

Puranic tradition, though having suffered distortion during the Piscean Age we left behind in 1926, does continue to hold the key to the manner in which from age to age Vishnu sends his Avatar precisely to re-set the cosmic clock. By his coming alone can this re-setting be done accurately, because it is a precision science cannot provide.

Back to American wisdom (‘…Put your money’…). I have stated that one Round of the Precession of the Equinoxes consists of 25,920 Earth years, moving as it does one degree of celestial longitude every 72 years; numbers which can all be reduced to 9 by the Mathematics of Unity. I have also stated that re-setting the cosmic clock is accomplished by Vishnu’s Avatar in astrological ages proper to his quality of Preservation. To prove that 25,920 is not arbitrary and cannot be rounded off, as some are inclined to do, the Coming itself does indeed prove the exactitude of this particularly important Divine Measure, insofar as the number-powers of the full birthdates (day/month/year) of Vishnu’s Avatar and his ‘team’, which I call Line, can be numerologically reduced to verify this special formula without which no further deciphering is possible. Thus, the four birth numbers in question equal 2-5-9-2-0 in the descending order in which their births did take place, the first two joined in time and number by the thousand position (25,920), followed by the next two of the Line in proper sequence both in number and time. The addition of the 0, the womb of all Number merits a separate discussion further on. This can demonstrate the exactitude of the updated cosmology. No guessing, no equivocation, no ‘science’ other than the Divine Mother’s sacred Geometry of Time.

Indeed, how can the science we know today pretend to organise four births in perfect sequence, cutting across time and dimensional barriers to fulfil a predetermined pattern known to sages of old, just to validate an ancient formula? And for what purpose? Coincidence, they claim. But when the ‘coincidences’ are repeated thousands of times to confirm the Coming from all angles with factual proof of the old and new cosmology, then a better argument has to be offered to be convincing, in this Aquarian () Age of Vishnu.

The Divine Consciousness holds all Gnosis in her womb of fullness, as in the Piscean/Matsya Ocean, gestating it until the time for the next principle above Mind to manifest which can make sense of the Geometry of Time and all that is connected to it. Supermind, above Mind, can establish and prove the reality of the next stage in human evolution en route to a divine apotheosis. Pisces is that dark womb where the higher truths of the Veda were gestated in preparation for the following Age of Vishnu . The human mind as it stands now cannot accomplish this organisational feat, much less understand how it came to pass and what its purpose might be. In discovering the background to this controlling power with the proper tools of higher knowledge, we understand the unique destiny of our planet.¹

1.See Appendix regarding the Constellations vis-à-vis the Tropical Zodiac.

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology




Appendix

The diagram below can explain why it is entirely inappropriate to call the constellations the Zodiac, and the confusion this has created in the name of Science. Also included is Robert Wilkinson’s explanation of his graphic:




The constellations of the zodiac we know today are believed to have originated with the Babylonians and Chaldeans, some 3000 years ago. They have the same names as the signs of the zodiac, but they are not the same thing. The groups of stars marked on charts as constellations are not actually groups at all. What we see from earth is the grouping of several points of light, some from points many millions of light years away, and others from much further even than that. In total there are 88 constellations, which can be divided into eight constellation families. While we usually think of twelve constellations which relate to the Zodiacal signs, there are over 24 constellations contained in the Ecliptic and they do not fit into neat 30 degree sections. Unlike the zodiac signs in astrology [of the Tropical Zodiac], which are all thirty degrees in length, the astronomical Constellations vary widely in size and position. Aries for example is very small and occupies less than 30 degrees of the ecliptic while Pisces is huge and occupies much more than 30 degrees of the ecliptic. RW

Puranic Cosmology Updated 14

3.5.2010

‘The letter lived on when the spirit was forgotten;
the symbol, the body of the doctrine, remained but the soul of knowledge
had fled from its coverings.’

Sri Aurobindo,
The Secret of the Veda.

India has a problem, a serious problem. When I explain what that might be in the context of this series, not many will agree. And this is precisely the point.

The problem is not obvious like poverty, over-population, unemployment, deforestation, degradation of the environment, extinction of native species, and so on. These are often blocked together under one label: ignorance. It is contended that illiteracy, for example, such as it exists, creates this ignorance because this is the common definition of the word, i.e., lacking in proper scholastic education. If we consider India in her contemporary avatar, disconnected from her hoary past, this definition and assessment would be correct. But is this possible?

It would be much simpler if we could view India as having taken birth in the last century with all the infirmities that existed then, many of which have still to be resolved. If, however, we insist with pride that contemporary society bears a direct link to the ancient civilisation, notwithstanding the various invasions, conquests and foreign rule experienced over the last millennium, then the situation has to be assessed differently. I repeat, herein lies the problem. It is indeed one of ignorance but little to do with the ills contemporary India faces.

Or might this ‘ignorance’ as defined in these pages be the root cause of all the rest?

In my view India should pride herself for the unique distinction of having a direct connection to the Vedic Age. Such being the case, do we have an obligation to honour that linkage/heritage by faithfulness to its ‘seed’ – which is by definition veda, knowledge? Again, herein lies the problem: there is ignorance and there is Ignorance capitalised. Similarly, there is knowledge and there is Knowledge. The latter is often referred to as higher knowledge to distinguish it from the lesser type. If this ‘higher’ is directly connected to the Veda, then it stands that honest scholarship and research must make every attempt to discern just what that Vedic Knowledge was.

There are few today who would believe that somehow we have ‘lost the plot’. I have used the term ‘thread’ and proven in these pages that such a thread does exist and it can be found exactly as it existed aeons ago, if we but take the trouble to remove certain encumbrances and cobwebs that have accumulated over this corpus of sacred knowledge with the courage demanded of such an enterprise. Above all, to have the foresight and the wisdom to re-set India’s cosmic clock to bring it back to its Vedic moorings.

In Update 13, I commented on the work of Dr Carmen Boulter and her team ¹ for doing just that: having the courage to question certain dogmas regarding ancient Egypt in the light of obvious evidence which, though sought to be suppressed, contradicts those official dogmas. But in studying ancient Egypt these brave academics have an advantage over their counterparts on the subcontinent. The latter’s task should be easier, it would seem, because the culture is alive and not defunct like the ancient Egyptian. Surely all that is required is to approach the issue like a sociologist not an anthropologist or archaeologist as the Egyptian exercise seems to demand, insofar as Egypt of today bears no resemblance at all to the Age of the Pyramids and the Sphinx – that is, prior to the Dynastic epoch.

Actually, India presents a more difficult conundrum, almost impossible to resolve. It is DISTORTION and not total obliteration as in Egypt and other points on the globe which once housed advanced civilisations incomprehensible to us today. The most successful method of occultation is distortion particularly in key areas of collective engagement. In India’s case this did not occur because of foreign invasion and rule by Islamic conquerors and Christian missionary zealots. Distortion was home grown. It came into effect much earlier and allowed for all the rest to ensue.

This was not the case in Egypt, though on the surface it might appear to have been. The culture prevalent during the time of construction of the older pyramids, Sphinx and temples was buried deep in desert sands long before Christianity and Islam became established on that sacred soil. The reason can be found in what was central and intrinsic to the civilisation itself. It can be explained by the cosmology known to the Egyptians and to ancient India over the same period. It was preserved in Egypt in the colossi its sages left, whose secrets were to be unveiled at a time indicated by that cosmology itself and recorded in the Sphinx, this being the purpose for its construction.

This was not the case regarding Vedic civilisation because of the unbroken linkage with the past. The very same cosmology was preserved in India but not in monuments or even in temples, though they did serve a valid purpose during the Age of Pisces when temple culture took root on the subcontinent precisely for the purpose of preservation of what had by then been largely forgotten. In the Vedic Age the line was maintained through the process described minutely in the Rig Veda, called the Journey or the Initiation. Its backdrop was the cosmos as seen from Earth. The sacred hymns were passed down through the Guru/Shishya parampar or tradition over several millennia – an astonishing feat in itself, we must agree. To prove the point, schools exist even today in South India where Brahmins are taught to memorise and recite the hymns/mantras impeccably, without changing a line, a word, or an intonation. Much is made of the fact that no deviations in the texts however minute are acceptable. But, as with all things under the influence of modernity and rationalism, we cannot help but wonder how long this tradition will survive. Perhaps if the reason for the existence of this practice is known, shorn of any misconceived reverse discrimination, the Agama Academies will return once again to enjoy the pre-eminence they deserve.

While we have evidence of the unbroken oral tradition in India, in Egypt it is provided by certain key mega structures; but in both cases the Knowledge is lacking today to decipher their content.

The task is easier when there is no distortion. In the Indian tradition this ability, if it may be so called, is proper to the Asura, the hostile force that operates and influences primarily through the mental plane. An example would be the strategy of the Magic Deluder of Puranic Tradition (Update 5). Thus, we continue to laud the Vedic foundation of the civilisation but introduce distortions which alter the sense and purpose of the seed-knowledge while calling it by the same name. An example is the inappropriately named Vedic Astrology. ²

Of course in Egypt this did not happen. Rather, we observe a slow and steady decline until by the Dynastic period original concepts were lost because the line of Initiates who built the early pyramids no longer existed: it was definitively broken. All that remains are the monuments that tell their own tale – if we could but decipher their true meaning. This has become increasingly difficult, particularly after passage through the Age of Pisces because the land fell into the hands of believers of very different faiths who were only too happy to disown the ancient past, disparagingly referred to as idolatrous. We do not find this situation in India, but the advantage in the former is that those megalithic structures still stand essentially as they were thousands of years ago, unchanged, conveying the same knowledge today as in the ancient past when they were built. They provide evidence to prove that many millennia ago the Earth housed a population different in almost all ways from her present inhabitants. And this appears to have been universal because what we find carefully preserved in Egypt in her indestructible mega structures is also preserved in India’s ancient wisdom – even down to solar cow worship.

Let us focus on the factual element common to both civilisations. This is once more the December Solstice and the beginning of zodiacal Capricorn. In Egypt, as presented by Dr Carmen Boulter and her team in the DVD mentioned in Update 13, The Pyramid Code, there can be no equivocation because the megaliths still exist, undistorted, which were created to locate in calendar time the two shortest days of the years; to prove the point, they continue to serve the same function with no ‘shifting’ zodiac to complicate issues as we find in contemporary scientific India. Clearly these points in the Earth’s annual rotation of the Sun were extremely important in ancient Egypt. And thus, like a massive cosmic clock the days when the two annual solstices occur, then as now, are marked off with precision by the position of the three pyramids at Giza. To further emphasise their importance, the Great Pyramid itself is aligned meticulously to the four Cardinal directions with astonishing accuracy. This alignment, these timings have nothing to do with the constellations, only the tropical zodiac of the 12-part ecliptic pathway.

Vedic India gave the same importance to that permanent axial balance – the four Cardinal Poles/directions, last of which is Uttarayana, the sacred most December Solstice which we have seen to coincide with the geo-cosmological mouths of Ganga (Update 13). In Egypt the sacred river was the Nile; in India it is Ganga.³

Returning to our problem, in Egypt there could be no distortion in this act of preservation because the pyramids were constructed in such a way that, unlike Hindu Temples with a similar objective, they defied corrosion with the passage of time and the destructive bent of future generations. They stand today as they were then, with enough of the monuments preserved to permit deciphering. They marked the very same zodiacal/solar harmonies without any ‘shifting’ as in India where consequently we find a distortion today in this very area: celebration of the December Solstice and the Capricorn gateway. The existence and commanding position of Initiates ended in Egypt thousands of years ago, completely and totally. With none left to engage in the art of distortion, once the veils (read, sands) are removed covering the extant monuments, the intent of the original builders stands before us intact. But the situation is entirely different on the subcontinent where disfigurement of that intent is witnessed; and since in India it is not a question of massive stone monuments but a continuity that hinges on maintenance of that tenuous ‘thread’ as a living tradition, the result is what it is – cosmic wheels within wheels out of synchronisation with each other; above all, out of alignment with the Earth.

In the next Update I will present a diagram that can help the reader understand exactly what it means to be out of synchronisation and the chaos this can engender. By celebrating Makar Sankranti 23 days late, the faithful are encouraged to celebrate a cosmological non-event. This is the problem in a nutshell. The result is 80% of the contemporary society’s energies are dispersed, disunified, disused.

This is not meant to minimise the value of a devotee’s worship in and for himself. His well being can be increased by worship and prayer; but this is limited to his own private universe. Yes, it has been proven that prayer can help heal a patient. However, cosmology covers the well being of the entire Earth. In fact, this is what distinguishes it from astrology: the latter provides a horoscope pertinent to the individual; cosmology, on the other hand can reveal harmonious patterns to establish the cosmic order in an entire civilisation, as it had been done in pre-historic times. The key to making that cosmic connection was known then and has since been lost. That key can and must be retrieved to recapture what was foregone, to become in this Aquarian Age the foundation for a new planetary society.

1.For those of you who received the Update immediately after posting, I regret that her name was misspelled initially as Butler instead of Boulter; the error stands rectified. In addition, a reproduction of Ganga was added to Update 13 on 3.5.2010 which is worth viewing.

2.A recent case in point is the temple built at the heart of the township Auroville, publicised as if it were the Mother’s original design, and yet every item she insisted upon has been altered by the builders, particularly the minute measurements she gave, in complete contempt for the sacred tradition of temple-building where the vision of the sage must be adhered to scrupulously; or else where the mantras must be recited exactly according to the version of the original Rishi. (For details see www.matacom.com.)

3. For a detailed treatment of these sacred rivers, see The New Way, Vol. 2, Chapters 11-12, Aeon Books (1981).

Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet
Director, Aeon Centre of Cosmology